When I joined Catholic Charities, it never crossed my mind that the U.S. Supreme Court would one day need to weigh in on whether our work is fundamentally tied to our faith. It seems self-evident — our very name bears the word “Catholic.”
Yet last year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court determined that the services we provide for the poor, the elderly and the disabled are not religious. This ruling not only misrepresents who we are and what guides us, but it also jeopardizes the resources so essential to the vulnerable individuals we serve.
Next week, our attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty will tell the Supreme Court that they shouldn’t be lecturing the Catholic Church on its own beliefs, or dictating to a faith-based charity like ours how to do our jobs.
2. Pew: Around the World, Many People Are Leaving Their Childhood Religions
- A Good Death: The inside story of a hospice
5. Katie Prejean McGrady: The astonishing way I prayed holding my dying grandfather’s hand
Jesus was there in the physical suffering of my Papa Gus, his legs and arms twisted, his heart already beginning to beat too fast as he had crashed into the tile floor. He was there as I knelt beside him, keeping vigil beside his growing cold body, trying to keep him talking and conscious long enough for the EMTs to assess him properly. He was there as we said “I love you” a dozen times in just a few moments, the phrase put at the end of every sentence of the idle chit-chat to try and keep him awake.
We said nothing that was all that important, but we said what needed to be said. Papa Gus knew I was there. He knew he was loved. And we both felt Jesus there, on the cold tile of that bathroom floor.
6. This happens way too often (and, of course, one time would be too many):
7. Chelsea Sobolik: Ukrainian Children Are Not Expendable
Over the past decade, Russia has forcefully transferred almost 20,000 children from Ukraine to Russia and Russian-controlled territories. International awareness of the crisis only spread at the start of the war. At the time of capture, children ranged in age from 4 months to 17 years old and have been subjected to political reeducation camps and military training.
The United States is in active conversations with Russia and Ukraine to accept a short-term hiatus from the conflict as both sides negotiate a longer-term peace plan. One of Ukraine’s conditions is the return of the children “illegally deported to Russia and thousands of civilians detained in Russian prisons.”
Concurrent with the US peace deal negotiations, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has stopped funding for Yale University researchers who are helping locate the abducted Ukrainian children. The team at Yale used “open-source technology including satellite imagery, social media and Russian publications, to trace the lost children and share their findings with the Ukrainian authorities to help them locate the abducted minors.”
Hundreds of Ukrainian children were illegally placed for adoption in Russia or placed in Russian families. In at least one case, the Yale researchers say, Russia’s government reissued the child’s birth certificate, “changing the child’s name and place of birth.” Many of these children have families. Abducted Ukrainian children have also been physically abused, separated indefinitely from their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care.
Perhaps most monstrously, Russia “targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.” To this day, Russia has refused to offer a list of children taken to Russia and their whereabouts — as mandated by international law — and has concealed its forced deportation and illegal adoption of children from Ukraine.
Most egregiously, US lawmakers have “reason to believe that the data from the repository has been permanently deleted.” At a time when the US is pushing for a peace deal, the alleged actions send a chilling message — that the plight of these innocent children is expendable in the name of bureaucratic efficiency.
11. The Top Threats to Marriage and How Thriving Couples Around the World Overcame Them
13. Fight Club: Does Baseball Suck? By Will Rahn:
Baseball is like love in that it’s essentially impossible to say something new about it. The crack of the bat, the smell of the field — that’s all been covered at length. Great writers, for whatever reason, tend to love baseball. Maybe it’s the rhythm, the slower pace that lets the mind wander. Watching a baseball game is a form of meditation — albeit one you hope will be interrupted by hugs and cheering and high-fiving strangers. . . .
I think that’s what it’s like to go to heaven. You round the bases and suddenly, all your old friends are there, weeping with joy because you are back together again. Show me another sport that brings you so close to the divine.
- Smithsonian: Why Did Vincent van Gogh Paint 26 Portraits of a Postman and His Family While Staying in the South of France?